This invention relates to a method of producing biological materials of the type generated by cells.
Advances in cellular biology have shown that the cells of various higher organisms produce small quantities of substances having significant potential or demonstrable utility for the treatment or diagnosis of disease. Examples of such substances abound in the literature and include various biological response modifiers such as hormones, interferons, and lymphokines, as well as other substances such as antibodies used in diagnostic testing. Cell cultures of microbial origin have long been used to produce large quantities of antibiotics.
Especially in cell cultures derived from higher animals, there is an ever present danger of bacterial or other contamination. Also, in most instances the quantities of the substance of interest produced by cell cultures are very small and collect in the culture medium which contains a complex mixture of serum proteins and other substances. This make isolation and purification of the substance of interest difficult.